From J.R. to the Bard

Yes, that’s Charlene Tilton doing Shakespeare.

Or quasi-Shakespeare.

The actress who’s known primarily as the little gadfly buzzing arounR. Ewing on TV’s “Dallas” has gone classical. She’s playing Millicent in “The Merry Devil of Edmonton,” a play billed as “Shakespeare’s lost comedie” by the management of the Globe Playhouse in West Hollywood.

Actually, Tilton points out that Shakespeare and “Dallas” are not from completely different planets. “In Shakespeare,” she said, “there’s murder, lust, greed--sounds like ‘Dallas’ to me.”

Whether “The Merry Devil of Edmonton” was written by Shakespeare is open to scholarly disagreement. Tilton said she isn’t taking sides on it. But, she said, “it is Elizabethan and it was written in iambic pentameter.”

Tilton’s previous stage experience with the Bard was at Hollywood High School (another “Romeo and Juliet”) and in various acting classes (she currently studies with Darryl Hickman).

Does Millicent look like Lucy Ewing? Tilton hopes not. But when interviewed three days before the opening, Tilton still didn’t know if Millicent would be a blonde: “I’m deciding that tomorrow.”

Her husband, Domenick Allen, plays her sweetheart in the play. Millicent’s parents try to separate the lovers by sending her to a nunnery--an option the Ewings never tried with Lucy.

Director Thad Taylor said that Tilton triumphed over 50 other contenders for the role. Yet the wages for this coveted job are hardly “Dallas”-sized: $2.50 for each performance.

“I’m not going to get the diamond tiara I always wanted,” joked Tilton. “But there is nothing that makes you grow more as an actor than to do a play.”